Now where did I leave off last time? Oh, yes, we were anchored at Lynard Cay after that bumpy Tuesday passage that made me seasick. Moving on to last Wednesday.
After breakfast last Wednesday morning we set off for Hope Town where we finally caught up with our friends, Rich and Cathy, and their big golden retriever, Bernie, on board M/V Angeleno. Thanks to those winds that kept us at Great Harbor Cay for so long, what should have been a week with our friends ended up being only a couple of days, but at least we got that. We picked up a mooring next to them in the harbor and they dinghied over and took us to lunch at the marina. (Thanks again for lunch!) After lunch we walked up the Hope Town Lighthouse, the only remaining manned lighthouse in the Bahamas. We were treated to spectacular 360o views after climbing the steep 100+ steps to the top. On our way back to the dinghy we looked in at the two small grocery stores to see what they had and bought a few pieces of fresh produce. We shared drinks, snacks and then dinner on their boat and returned to Lady for bed.
Thursday morning Dave and I went ashore for a walk through the town. We stopped at Vernon’s Market & Bakery to buy some fresh made pastries and a couple of produce items for dinner that night. On the way back to our dinghy we stopped at Captain Jack’s and got a bottle of rum. We’d heard rave reviews about their restaurant, but they are still rebuilding from Dorian and won’t open until later this summer. At least their liquor store was open! We ran into Cathy, Rich and Bernie on our way out of Captain Jack’s and decided to return to our boats and prepare to head out of the harbor and up to an anchorage off Dickies Cay outside the mouth of Man-O-War Cay harbor. Cathy and Rich needed to leave early the following morning to start their trek home, and the rising tide out of the harbor next morning would not have been conducive to an early departure. Not having a dog to tend to and no need to warm up our electric motors before departure, Dave and I enjoyed the delicious apple cinnamon scones we’d purchased at Vernon’s while our friends prepped their boat for departure.
By late morning we were headed out of the harbor and traveled the 4 nm to our new anchorage. An hour later we were rafted together on Lady’s anchor and very cozy. If you’re not familiar with the term, “rafting” is when two boats tie up alongside each other, usually with only one boat’s anchor holding them in place. It allowed us to easily pass between boats, and Bernie always had his humans within sight. We made our own lunches and ate in Lady’s cockpit, retired to our own boats for some down time, then reconvened on Lady for afternoon drinks and snacks, followed by dinner, with brownies, and more rum, for dessert. We all headed for bed around 9pm.
We bid an early farewell to Cathy, Rich and Bernie Friday morning as they started their trek back to the U.S. Dave and I stayed in place and on the boat the rest of Friday. We did some boat chores, pulled out our charts and loosely planned our remaining time in the Abacos, then relaxed in the hammock with our books the rest of the afternoon, had dinner, and retired to bed fairly early. I was still pretty exhausted from Tuesday’s passage and very much needed and appreciated the low key day.
Dave and I set out to dinghy ashore Saturday morning swinging by the catamaran, S/V Tribute, that had just anchored behind us, to say hello. We met Jeff and Melissa, chatted for a bit and planned to meet up for drinks and appetizers later. Dave and I continued into the harbor, tied dinghy to their shiny new public dock, and took a walk. The Abacos were devastated by hurricane Dorian almost two years ago, and the pandemic followed closely on its heels. The islands are in various states of recovery from the hurricane. Man-O-War Cay is a small island with a small resident population of just over 200, but they’re making progress and there is a lot of rebuilding occurring now. As I said, their public dock is new. The Hibiscus Café near it was open as was an amazing coffee shop, which we found on our walk back into town from the outskirts. Lo and behold, we ran into Jeff and Melissa! We all sat outside in the shade enjoying our sinfully sugary treats and drinks, chatting up a storm. We eventually went our separate ways planning to meet on their boat later that evening. We stopped in the grocery store across from the coffee shop and struck pay dirt! It was the biggest, best stocked grocery we’ve seen so far. By U.S. standards it’s very tiny, but for these small islands it was a bonanza. We didn’t need much, but did buy a few items, especially fresh produce! On our way back to dinghy we ordered takeout from the Hibiscus Café. We killed our half hour wait time by walking out of town in the other direction a bit. We chatted with a local man also waiting for his lunch. We learned from him that the resident population of Man-O-War is about 210/220, down about 30-40 people since Dorian, when several left. We also learned that about half of the houses on the island are owned by locals and the other half by foreigners, mostly from the U.S. We bid him farewell when our food was ready and returned to Lady for our late lunch and a relaxing afternoon.
At 6:00pm we headed over to Tribute with some homemade hummus and a pitcher of our boat signature drink, called Indigo Ladies, of course. Jeff and Melissa had out a yummy spread of apples and carrots (more fresh produce!), crackers and dip. Their boat is amazing! It’s a new build, HH50 high performance, all carbon fiber 52’ catamaran. Dave geeked out while Jeff showed him all the cool technology. It’s also a beautiful living space. I’ll let you google them if you want to know more about this amazing vessel.
We talked non-stop until almost 9pm. We come from different backgrounds, but Dave and Jeff have the same corny sense of humor, Melissa and I weren’t really boaters until we met these guys (who have been around boats forever), we all retired early, we’re all new to living aboard, and we have similar world views. They are heading up to cruise Maine for the summer, our old stomping grounds. Jeff made an interesting observation while we were talking. Where, other than within the cruising community, do people meet strangers for the first time and invite them over for drinks? You don’t turn to the person behind you in the supermarket line and invite them over for drinks. Jeff is so right! We meet all sorts of fun and interesting people cruising and it is especially nice to meet kindred spirits, as we did meeting Jeff & Melissa. We will surely stay in touch, but it’s still a bit sad to have to bid farewell so soon after meeting. Hopefully our paths will cross again next cruising season, somewhere in the Caribbean.
Sunday at lunch time we hauled anchor and ate underway as we backtracked 12 miles to Lynard Cay. Jeff and Melissa raved about snorkeling at “Coral Gardens” off Sandy Cay just two miles from the Lynard Cay anchorage. Wildly Intrepid had also told us about this fabulous spot, but we figured it just wasn’t in the cards since we had really wanted to catch up with our friends in Hope Town which was past Coral Gardens. Now that two couples raved about it, we started to think we may not want to miss it. It would also give us the chance to stop in Hope Town again, which I wanted more time to explore. We’re not really on a schedule, so why miss a hot snorkeling spot? So backtrack we did. We were at anchor back at Lynard Cay in time for afternoon drinks and hammock time.
How was the diving? You’ll have to wait until this weekend’s post to find out. Until then…
Stay safe and take care of each other!’
Life on Lady 